Brad Ziegler

Quick, grab a coin from your pocket. Now hurl it in a river, and imagine it’s at someone in your office two cubicles away. Now mid-flight, make a wish. Get back to me in two-three days and let me know how it went. This luck and wish game is much like the closer game. We hope and pray that all is well, but at the end of the day, we only care about the accumulation. This late in the season its all about the job. Who is doing it and who isn’t, period. The stalwarts are on cruise control into the final stretch of the season and are mostly on more winning teams than the teams that have situations that aren’t the most ideal. Good bullpens usually equal good-to-moderately-good success in real life. Much is the same with fantasy closer investment and going into next year if you struggled for saves this year. Invest in teams that will have aspirations of playoff baseball. The investment in drafting a round or two earlier than usual should pay off in the long run of the ever treacherous 180 days of fantasy baseball. So with the season winding down, let’s see what is happening in the saves market around the game as we transition into fantasy football, basketball, hockey and SOCCER!

Who loves irony? Did you just answer your mom? I said irony, not ironing. As the British will tell you, irony is not a well-pressed shirt. Though, now that I think about it, if I had a well-pressed shirt, and I said, “This thing is real irony,” I wouldn’t be wrong because I was saying it. Any hoo! The irony I speak of is Alex Gordon hitting the major leagues’ record 5,694th home run on the year, while there was less offense around the league last night than I could remember in some time. Granted, from around September 11th to 14th is a bit of a blur. A true highlight (building shizz up now!) was Kevin Gausman and his dismantling of the Sawx (really overselling) with the line 8 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.61. This year, like a case of lice, Gausman is a real head scratcher. Looking at his perfs (kids say this; think it’s short for perfumes), Gausman is having a garbage year. Velocity is there, so doubt it’s a hidden injury. The walks are way up, Ks are down, and the culprit appears to be his fastball. Went from a near-10 in pitch value on his speed ball to a negative. FS shouldn’t abbreviate fastball, it should be for “F**k’s sake.” The good news is this sounds like a mechanics problem, and might’ve been fixed already. Thanks, Pep Boys! His 1st half vs. 2nd half: 5.85 ERA vs. 3.44; 7.7 K/9 vs. 9.6 K/9; 4 BB/9 vs. 3.2. Yeah, sadly enough, it’s going to be hard to avoid him in 2018 again. Now, that’s real irony (no, it’s not). Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

There’s a common term sociologists use called, The Tide of Uze. Everything that encompasses everyday life is on The Tide of Uze. Brushing your teeth, walking your dog, Jose Abreu, they’re all on The Tide of Uze. There’s small pleasures to be found with them, but they’re so consistent they are often lost amongst other more exciting things. However, this past weekend The Tide of Uze was raised by Irma GAWD!, the fantasy football kickoff and me going to a Dodgers game with Dr. Kenneth Noisewater, a frequent commenter who was in town. I didn’t rank those per their importance, I’ll leave that to you. Big weekend for the world, right? (Yes.) With the Tide of Uze raising, it lifts everything that was floating on its surface, which meant Jose Abreu had a career weekend. On Saturday, he hit for the cycle, and, not to be outdone, he homered twice on Sunday (2-for-3, 3 RBIs, home run, 30 and 31). His season numbers are now 85/31/90/.302/1. All preseason I talked about how I wasn’t getting a 1st baseman in the first two rounds, so I was drafting Abreu everywhere, and I was nervous about it. Let’s just say I’ve learned to appreciate The Tide of Uze. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

There are two times of the year taxing comes about. Once at the beginning of the fantasy baseball season for legal tax reasons, and then about now in September. The Yankees seem to be flip-flopping useful relievers from one to another as they all seem to be getting worn. So Aroldis Chapman with some wear and tear eased off his arm is going to be worked back into the clutch-save position for the Yanks. Betances over the past 14 days has maintained his K/9 rate of over 15, but at the expense of his ERA (7.91), and his BB/9 rate has spiked all the way up to near 8 per 9. That is the stuff that gets people fired or demoted. (Which is exactly what is happening in his case.) I can see him dropping to a lesser role for the next week or so and being used in less pivotal situations. Allowing Robertson and Chad Green to show what they got in front of the flame-throwing Cuban. Aroldis’ last 14 games have been a far improvement over his last 14. Era was only 2.70, K/9 way below his standard at 10.80. The bad department is that he hasn’t really been used too much. So as he gets back on the bike in closer role and the season comes to an end soon, let’s see what else is going down in the world of saves…

Yesterday, Victor Robles was called up by the Nats. He’s number two in Prospector Ralph’s top 100 prospects, and everyone loves him, even Brad Garrett! Robles will likely be the first guy I go over this offseason when I go over some high-profile rookies for 2018. He is real, and he’s beautiful. So, here’s the text question I posed to Prospector Ralph yesterday, “Who gets more at-bats from now until the end of the season for the Nationals, Alejandro De Aza or Robles?” At that point, Ralph stopped talking to me, but it’s even worse. Prior to my text, I saw “…” showing that he was typing, then that disappeared and nothing. Just silence. Eventually, I got a text back that Robles could play half the time. I don’t know. My guess is Nats are promoting him as a sort of butt pat that he did well this year. Maybe he replaces Werth, Kendrick or Taylor here and there and plays a few times a week. Werth’s shoulder has been barking and he’s woof, in general. I didn’t care about picking up Robles in a 12-team mixed league, but grabbed him in a 15-teamer to drop Francisco Mejia, who was last week’s “YOU GOTTA GRAB HIM!” Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Three. Let’s get that out of the way right now, said like Gordon Ramsay. One Polanco to type, one Polanco to dictate the words and one Polanco to move the keyboard around so the typing Polanco doesn’t just keep hitting the same letter. That’s three Polancos. How many Polancos does it take to hit four home runs in four games? That’s one Jorge Polanco. Not Juan Polanco, he’s not a baseball player. Juan Polanco is a cloud competitor in the Vape Olympics. Any of you ever feel down on yourself remember this simply thing: there’s people who compete in exhaling vape. “Hey, guy, you’re not really competing in something, you’re, uh, exhaling.” Jorge Polanco has actually had a decent season (for him), though it’s mostly contingent on his last week. This Buy is wholly contingent on his last week. He’s no longer Jorge Polanco, he’s Jorge Schmotato, and he will rescue your teams from their failings and take out your garbage. Okay, maybe not the 2nd part, but, damn, I wish that were true. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Open Up and Buy AH, because owning Aaron Hicks is Nothin’ But A Good Time! Also, a good time is searching any girl’s name from Rock of Love with your parental controls turned off. Okay, I have a few Bee Tee Dubs here. Unless you have a child, you don’t set parental controls on your TV. You can filter what you see without magically stumbling on porn. The internet though? You need parental controls on it, no matter if you’re home, at work, 12 years old, 64 years old, at school or on the john. You can Google something as innocuous as “cucumber” with no parental controls and all hell breaks loose in your search results. “Oh em gee, I just wanted a recipe for a cucumber salad!” Bee tee dubya II, we’re due for a terrible 80’s hair band renaissance. Someone needs to do a cover of a Poison song. Bee tee dubya III, there is no bee tee dubya III. Bee tee dubya IV, I have this nugget in my brain that says, even though I was only 14 years old, I knew how awful Poison was at the time. Like, when they did Your Mama Don’t Dance, a big part of me knew they were absolutely terrible, even then. Any hoo! Hey, any hoo’s initials are Aaron Hicks. Coinkydink? Thinks not. He’s on a 162-game pace of 25 HRs, 15 SBs and a .280 average. Of course, that doesn’t matter. We just want a hot player at this point, and, on our 7-day Player Rater, he’s near top 75, and should be owned everywhere. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Atlanta Braves top prospect/hot shot rookie/middle infielder/the “New” Georgia Peach Ozzie Albies hit his second career major league home run in just his ninth career major league start going 2-for-4 with the 3-run bomb. Albies has basically been doing what we expected/wished/hoped/prayed Dansby Swanson would do all season: hit baseballs. Well, luckily for us there’s plenty of young middle infielders in the sea. By the way, were you impressed by my Shelley reference in headline? You didn’t think I’d miss a chance to mention one of my favorite non-Shakespearian sonnets, Ozymandias, did you? Speaking of English romantic poets (killer segue, I know!), the 20 year-old Albies was slashing .285/.330/.440 at Triple A Gwinett, and the kiddo’s got some game-changing speed with 21 steals in 91 games. If those numbers aren’t romantic or poetic enough for you I don’t what it is you’re looking for. Funny enough, I said the same thing to my real life human girlfriend. He hit just nine home runs in the minors but its pretty clear the power is on the way, with two dingers already in just nine major league starts. Friday night was Ozzie’s first multi-hit game in the bigs, and with the homer and 3 RBI he seems to be adjusting well to his new surroundings and getting plenty comfortable at the plate. Grey told you to BUY this week, and he gushed about him here. In keeper/dynasty formats you should own him already, but I think he’s worth a flier everywhere else based on his potential to help with speed/average. The .214/.313/.464 in just nine games is too small to take away from, but the two homers and 6 RBI are certainly an exciting sign for the young infielder and fantasy owners alike. This kid’s gonna be a star! Ha-cha-cha!

Here’s what else I saw Friday night in fantasy baseball:

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When I write titles like this, often times I say to myself: Do I need to extrapolate on the actuality of the point that I am trying to convey? Fortunately for you I am going to be all basic with knowledge this week because it is pretty cut and dry. Are you winning saves? How much are you winning saves by? If yes for the first question and over 20 for the second, be like Billy Ray and sell. Do not liquidate all your assets, just slim down your roster to a smattering of usefulness instead of a hoard. Find a culprit who maybe chasing second, third or even fourth. My reasoning for this and why you should do it now is that before people realize that there is no hope in dope or chasing saves when you can’t make them up… they will lose interest and they will have zero trade value. Don’t get stuck holding a struggling middle/upper closer when you can reinvest that in a bat that can make up a stat other than just one. Today’s moral is: sell saves, be aware that your return may not be as great as expected, but it’s better then dumping them to the waiver wire for nothing.

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The first thing people notice about him is he looks drunk and half-Asian. He was throwing back soju and partying in an 8×10 room with three other people singing karaoke? No, siree! Or, no Siri, if a female computer is reading. Next, you might wonder why the big grin. He doesn’t have a body, ears, hair, arms, anything but a head really, so how can he keep such an upbeat attitude? Well, let me put it to you this way, maybe it’s a body, ears, hair, etc. that bums people out. You never thought of that, did you? Okay, I’m being silly, but it’s Friday. By the way, the other day, I realized that the days of the week MTWTFSS have WTF in the middle of them. Mind –>blown. So, with Schebler DL’d for an indefinite period of time, Winker has taken over right and started batting 2nd. His power was goofy low in the minors this year (2 HRs in 85 games), but he doesn’t strike out, does walk and could hit .290. I know, a lot of good that does with diddly poo on power, but he has homered twice this week, and did have more power before this year in the minors. I’d grab him in all leagues to see if he found his stroke, even if we’re not sure what exactly he’d be stroking with. Is that why he’s smiling? Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball: